Now i need a new PC but since i have to invest in a new pc i need something better then what i had but i haven't kept my PC Parts knowledge up to date.

Im gonna use my laptop till i get a new pc and >_< i cant access anything from my pc and can't backup anything, i have 2 sata hd in raid 0 mode and my parents computer dont have a Sata port so i will either have to buy a pci to sata card or do my backup only when i get my new pc in 1-2 months

For the next few days, I'm gonna be roaming the net looking for what pieces of hardware to put in my new computers.

The reason for this post is so that if you know the answer to the questions i have or have link in your bookmarks to sites that can explain all theses new things, it will shorten the delay before i buy a new computer.

1st question : Buy a built in store customised computer (local store or big compagnie) or buy parts and build it myself for a lower cost.

3rd question : Is 2 videocard at 256 mo in SLI or Crossfire mode better then 1 512mo card. (the number of mo will vary depending of the price of the cards)

4th question : How much faster is dual core compared to single core IE: P4 at 3ghz vs Dual core at 3ghz and should i go AMD or Intel

5th question : should i buy a water cooling thing to put inside the comp or its not a good idea, if yes what type.

Hopefully i can find all my answers rapidly on the net and manage to get a new comp before i go crasy.

Still 40 min of FFXI update on laptop, time to start my search.

Thanks in advence if you can help!

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:25 pm Post subject:

OniBluredalidin

Joined: 17 Feb 2007Posts: 454

1. personaly i only build my own desktop pcs the money i save is great and its exactly what i want. plus it only takes a few minutes to put together if you know what your doing.
2. i'm not sure about sorry
3. personaly i'd go with the 512 do to convenience
4. dual core works better jsut because of its name its not really the speed in essence it will let you run windows and effect you playing ff so you'll have a smoother gaming experiance. most of the lag issues with ff and such is probaly the connection between your pc and the pol servers enless your using a majorly outdated piece of equipment or a crashbox 360.
5. been awhile since i looked at cooling devices but i'd be very meh about putting something with water into my pc

gl lucky hope you make yourself a fine piece of machine_________________
If people were ment to be alone there wouldn't be so many of us on this planet.

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:40 pm Post subject:

AlananirDocWilco

Joined: 12 Feb 2006Posts: 3656

1. Self built isn't cheaper than pre-built, usually. However, that's because pre-built uses massmarket parts that are cheaper, but also lower performance/quality.

2. Raptors at 15K will be faster than 2 normal 7.2K disks. Even though the interface is faster, most disks will not reach more than 70-90 megs/sec. And that's some high-grade stuff we're talking about. Of course, cached data will transfer faster, so there might be a difference on re-reading the same stuff, but for overall througput, 15K rpm disks will be faster.

However, considering the speed of some 7.2K disks, the price difference is hard to justify. I'd suggest hitting up http://www.storagereview.com/ for some nice benchmarks. Personally, I put a lot of stock in low-noise as well.

3. 2 vidcards in SLI with half the ram of a single card... well now. Difficult question, and one that's really hard to answer. See, you have more computing power with 2 cards, even if they're cheaper than the single. However, the memory can be your bottleneck. Things are going to slow down if you need to transfer data from main memory to gpu memory. And since both cards are rendering nearly the same thing, both cards will need nearly the same things in memory. That means that if a game can run smoothly (not transferring stuff to/from main memory) with 512 megs, but not with 256, the 2x256 solution is going to be lagging behind the 1x512. However if the game can do it with just 256, the 2x256 solution will be the one acing things.

4. Dual-core vs. Single-core. Considering your earlier remarks, I'm thinking you're looking at a mid- to high-end system. A dual-core running at 3GHz per core is definitely going to stomp all over a single-core chip running at 3GHz. Considering the 6000 (and up) models are quite affordable, I'd highly recommend you take a dual-core 6000+ model.

Basically, a single core on a dual-core chip has as much power as a single-core chip has, provided they have the same cache and speed. Now whether you'll be using the second core depends on a few things. How what you are using is written, and if you're using multiple things at the same time. Some games will take advantage of multiple CPUs/cores, some won't. But even if you have a singlethreaded game, if you run other stuff in the background, you'll still have an advantage with a dual-core CPU.

Now Intel vs. AMD. Until recently the mid-end CPUs were competitively priced on both sides. Only the higher end (6600+) models were cheaper at Intel. However, Intel slashed prices this week, so right now they're probably a better deal.

However, I'm an AMD fanboy, and would like to point out that AMD is introducing their quad-core CPUs soon, which will probably include a price slashing on all dual-core and single-core CPUs as well. Keep an eye on the tech sites (anandtech, tomshardware, etc.) over the next month or so.

5. Water cooling is usually not needed. It's something used for overclocking (running components faster than spec), and/or showing off. It is quite cumbersome, since you usually need to have external parts to it too, like water reservoirs and/or heat exchangers.

What's more important is to have a decent airflow through your case. Make sure that the fan in your PSU (Power Supply Unit) is blowing out, not in (don't laugh, I had one that did this, causing frequent overheating). Have all fans at the back blow outwards, and have fans at the front blowing in. It's especially nice to have airflow over your disks as well. And make sure there's no dead spots in the case. Spots where air doesn't flow.

Not gonna go through all your questions Lucky, since you just gotta look at super genuis's post above mine for your answers.

Im a big AMD fan, and Im not 100% sure the difference in Dual core and Single Core, but i envision it this way, Single Core = processor running at X Ghz. Dual Core = two processors running at X GHz. Not sure thats right though, and Im sure doc will correct me if im wrong =/.

Ive always been told Self Built is cheaper... but thinking about it, doc was right, self built is still as expensive, but will likely get a better performance outa your machine, if you do it right.

Question: WTF are raptors...and Sata's?....

Id say go for a single Vid Card at 512. Tis a beautiful thing it is =D I use a Radeon ProX 1600, 512MB. I loves it =D

Theres 2 type of HD now, the old IDE or the new Serial-ATA, the raptor is a HD that runs at 10,000 rpm instead of the normal 7,500 rpm that all other HD runs at, in raid0 configuration, your computer never slows down from the HD read/writes ^_^ they dont show up there but i have 2 - 36gig HD raptors in raid0 in my computer, so il probably use them for my new computer.

1. Il probably go to a local computer store and buy a customized one if the total price is good.

2. il probably install the os and games on my 2 raptors and use a 2nd type of drive for storage

3. i havent really checked atm other then ati crossfire seams to be a lot more compatible with games but its probably be 2 - 512mo or a single 1 depending of the price

4. il probably go for the AMD but still need to check prices but i cant wait too long, playing on laptop is no fun when your used to a GOODLY equiped gaming PC, they dont sell single core now, thats why i have to buy new comp instead of just buying new cpu, tho now that motherboard is dead i cant just buy a cpu

5. i dont know, i saw in the back of a store a PC with a water cooling and other then the inside being alien like, it didnt seamed to have external part tho they were probably not installed yet and man i wish i had 10k to put for a new comp.

6. i already have 2 gig of ram in my comp but since i cant check their stats im not sure what to do, il have to pop them in my parent comps to see what they are, tho should i get 2 more gig and add my own or go directly at 4 gig and donate my 2 gig to my parents.

Anyway thanks for the quick reply! Now im a little less confused ^_^;

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:00 am Post subject:

LuckyAlexWhy hasn't Lucky asked for a title yet?

Joined: 14 Apr 2006Posts: 491

heres a lil update after some searching,

3. ive check the videocard and the new ati HD2600 is way too power hungry and would be deadly in crossfire mode. from what i read crossfire or sli is a 60-75 % gain so going for the bigger card is more efficient and for some game crossfire or sli dont give any good boost. im currently leaning for the GeForce 8800 GTS 640mo but if i find more dough the GeForce 8800 GTX 768 looks really good

the 2.4 ghz quad core is the same price as the 3.0ghz dual-core, i dont do enough multi-tasking to use quad core to their fullest extent, and for gaming higher ghz is better since most game arent multi-threaded.

Yup the HD2600 is ati Dx10 card and is a power hungry beast, you need like a really big power supply and isnt really powerfull enough to warrant buying it, as for the x1950xtx, i dont really want to buy a new video card in the future, so im trying to find something powerfull that i wont have to change that will support everthing i throw at it for the next 5+ years.

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 12:39 pm Post subject:

AlananirDocWilco

Joined: 12 Feb 2006Posts: 3656

nVidia 8800 ftw. Especially since you can get another 8800 in the future and SLI it.

I prefer laptops to desktops myself, well if I had my druthers I would be working with a Cray

Anyway I will be looking at solid state drives the next laptop I will have built - one or two of them anyway - no noise, no mechanical parts to wear out. They are up to 64 MB in laptops anyway now and only going up from there. Perhaps you will need to keep your eye on those as well in the future.

Sounds like you have a nice CPU and vid card picked out already. My two cents worth is that at present Nvidia has better products than ATI.

If I was building a desktop I would water cool it. Toms Hardware had a lolvideo where they tested domestic vs imported beer as cooling fluid. With the CPU you have picked out I would think you could overclock to 3.2 without any mods or water cooling solution. Actually water cooling is not that hard to set up and they have much better stuff to use other than waste an oil can on or just plain water. It is a much more effiecient way to remove heat from all the processors in the box. I bet that 8800 card will run pretty hot too to be honest.

You mentioned you are going to 4 GB of memory does that mean you are using Vista or XP64? If you are using or going to Vista I have heard that Vista wants to shadow everything so if you have a SLI setup with two 512 MB cards Vista will potentially use 1 GB of RAM to shadow what is going on in video memory. Does anybody else know about the shadowing in Vista? Just wondering from what I hopefully remembered from many moons ago.

Well to get into the memory thing here along with Dunna's question:

First of all, when it comes to memory, the more you have, the better it is... period.

Second, your OS & chipset have a big impact on how much memory your system can see, and effectiuvely use.
3GB was the old barrier, this was due to the Windows XP OS and the pre-965 Intel chipsets (on Intel CPU's). The other memory was there, but was allegedly used by "upper system functions". Sounds a little fishy to me, memory that is there but you can't see or get any benefit from? Now we have 64 bit Windows Vista (for better or worse) which supports more memory than we can effectively put in a laptop system anyway.

Third - From a laptop memory side of things as well, even though the new Intel Centrino Santa Rosa chipset utilizes a 800 Mhz front side bus, the memory channel still only supports 667 Mhz!?! This is very confusing, and I believe Intel is making it deliberately hard to find this out so people will naturally assume the memory is 800 Mhz.

I would use OCZ memory if I had to choose - better quality stuff over something like Corsair (which I thought in the past was high end memory)

Dunna primer 101 memory -

Bandwidth is the rate at which data can be sent from the DRAMs over the memory bus. Lower timings allow faster access to the data, while higher bandwidth allows access to more data. Applications that access large amounts of data - either sequentially or randomly - usually benefit from increased bandwidth. Bandwidth can be increased either by increasing the number of memory channels (i.e. dual-channel) or by increasing the clock speed of the memory. Doubling memory bandwidth will never lead to a doubling of actual performance except in theoretical benchmarks, but it could provide a significant boost in performance. Many games and multimedia benchmarks process large amounts of data that cannot reside within the cache of the CPU, and being able to retrieve the data faster can help out. All other things being equal, more bandwidth will never hurt performance.

Doc talked about tighter timings which is layman terms for the following on latency in RAM:

CAS
Column Access Strobe (sometimes Column Access Select). This is actually the last stage in finding where data is physically located in RAM. Data is stored in an array of columns and rows–the row is selected first, then the column is selected and the data in memory is either read from or written to. CAS is the amount of time, in cycles, between receiving the column access command and acting upon it. It is usually a value of 2, 2.5, or 3 for DDR and 4-5 or 6 for DDR2.
tRCD
RAS (Row Access Strobe) to CAS delay. This is the delay, in number of cycles, between finding the row of a location in memory, and finding the column. This value is usually between 3 and 5 cycles, but it doesn't tend to have a huge impact on performance. Sequential bits of data are usually stored along the same row in memory, so rows are not re-selected nearly as often as columns.
tRP
RAS precharge. This is how much time it takes for the memory to stop accessing one row and start accessing another. Like tRCD, this value is typically between 3 and 5 cycles for modern memory systems. It can have an impact on performance when programs use large blocks of memory that span several rows.
tRAS
Active to Precharge Delay. This is the delay, in cycles, between the pins of the memory module electronically receiving a signal and the module starting the Row Access Strobe to locate and retrieve (or write) it. This is generally a pretty big delay, from 5 to 8 cycles on most DDR memories. But it also doesn't have a huge impact on performance, and should only make a big difference when memory access patterns change dramatically.

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:42 pm Post subject:

MayehHand of Heaven

Joined: 27 Feb 2006Posts: 4436Location: Toronto, Canada

ATI is no longer the company that it used to be. My father doesn't work for them anymore (he retired). They got bought out by AMD in case you didn't know._________________
A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!
- Blade Runner

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:08 pm Post subject:

OniBluredalidin

Joined: 17 Feb 2007Posts: 454

Alananir wrote:

1. Self built isn't cheaper than pre-built, usually. However, that's because pre-built uses massmarket parts that are cheaper, but also lower performance/quality.

sounds alil contridicting here doc

put this into an equition so you see it how i do

price self <prebuilt> prebuilt
if you where to use the same generic parts on your self built cpu it would cost less or i could just be seeing things but meh sorry for sidetracking_________________
If people were ment to be alone there wouldn't be so many of us on this planet.

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:54 pm Post subject:

KoijiParagon of Pirate Excellence

Joined: 16 Feb 2006Posts: 881Location: Seattle, WA

Oni wrote:

Alananir wrote:

1. Self built isn't cheaper than pre-built, usually. However, that's because pre-built uses massmarket parts that are cheaper, but also lower performance/quality.

sounds alil contridicting here doc

put this into an equition so you see it how i do

price self <prebuilt> prebuilt
if you where to use the same generic parts on your self built cpu it would cost less or i could just be seeing things but meh sorry for sidetracking

Pre-builts tend to be cheaper since they 1) buy parts in mass quantities, and 2) use cheaper parts. Self-builts are (can be) cheaper since you don't pay a manufacturer for labor and warranty, but component costs will be higher._________________

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:16 pm Post subject:

AlananirDocWilco

Joined: 12 Feb 2006Posts: 3656

Koiji wrote:

Pre-builts tend to be cheaper since they 1) buy parts in mass quantities, and 2) use cheaper parts. Self-builts are (can be) cheaper since you don't pay a manufacturer for labor and warranty, but component costs will be higher.

Exactly. If you get a custom pre-built, then yes, it's going to be cheaper to build your own.